Thursday May 28, Lilongwe Area 3, Mabuya Camp (night)

I am writing this by the light of my headlamp at Mabuya Camp in Area 3 of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Mabuya is a hostel, of sorts, constituted primarily of local hangabouts. This is Africa proper. Katie, a young man my age who works at the camp, a girl from Bristol, and myself strolled over to the market in the last few hours of light today. This whole experience was so completely outside my frame of reference that I have yet to even establish enough appropriate context to process it all. The images I am now turning over where nowhere present in my mind before seeing them today. I had imagined a sort of Middle-Eastern bazaar, another sight I have never seen, but at least have a filmic reference for. The market here was instead rows and rows of thatched brown cubicles, and vendors peddling fruits, vegetables, curios, crafts, and crap. Giant carrots and cabbage to wallet pouches, and bootlegged movies. Kenny Rodgers cassettes, and wallet puches, dried fish, dried beans, and warm soda. Everyone tries to force their products upon you, but they seem to relent easily enough with a "no thank you." Probably used to that sort of thing. People are happy and smiling here. They shake hands long and often. I feel very much a foreigner and very much alone. My travel companion is in somewhat of a foul mood I'm afraid, and it puts me in the precarious situation of feeling happy about some independence, and feeling completely overwhelmed and somewhat helpless. I suffered an abrupt need for a toilet in the supermarket today. I asked where I may find such a thing and they told me, "the front." I had to ask again at the front because there was nothing indicating "toilet" anywhere. They told me to go to the manager's office. The manager told me to, "go straight," which led to a door marked "staff only." I asked sheepishly, "toilet?" feeling I had to be closing in on salvation, but the doorway only led to more confusion. "Toilet?" "Yes." "Toilet?" "Talk to that man." "Toilet?" "Upstairs." "Great! Zikomo!" "But I have to search you first." Fine! Toilet is the next step right? I bet if we really tried we could reduce the amount of steps in this process to two. But all of this is just amazing. I'm scared. I'm exhilarated. I'm happy. I'm disoriented. I'm worried. I'm hopeful. I'm in Africa.

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